Laser-induced radial birefringence and spin-to-orbital optical angular momentum conversion in silver-doped glasses

Abstract

Samples of Ag${}^{+}$/Na${}^{+}$ ion-exchanged glass that have been subject to intense laser irradiation may develop novel optical properties, as a consequence of the formation of patterns of silver nanoparticles and other structures. Here, we report the observation of a laser-induced permanent transverse birefringence, with the optical axis forming a radial pattern, as revealed by the spin-to-orbital angular momentum conversion occurring in a probe light beam. The birefringence pattern can be modeled well as resulting from thermally-induced stresses arising in the silver-doped glass during laser exposure, although the actual mechanism leading to the permanent anisotropy is probably more complex.

3 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Optical spin-to-orbital angular momentum conversion in inhomogeneous anisotropic media

Cited by in corpus (2)

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